About this collection

The Emilia Pia di Montefeltre Archival Portrait Exhibition contains letters, receipts, and photographs mostly concerning Jacob Epstein, as well as pages from his personal scrapbook. Epstein started purchasing art in 1906, and later was asked to join the first board of trustees of the New Museum in 1923. In 1927, Epstein received much publicity in the newspapers after purchasing two paintings for $250,000 a piece; Rinaldo and Armidaby Van Dyck, and a Portrait of Emilia Pia di Montefeltre by Raphael. He was considered a true art collector, and he willed his collection to the Baltimore Museum of Art at the time of his death in 1945.

This collection contains papers concerning Epstein, as well as documents about the conservation of the painting including, for example, an excerpt of a letter to the assistant curator of the museum from a conservator about the findings from x-ray examinations of the portrait. Another document is a letter to Epstein from 1940 about the possible chain of ownership of the painting. An exhibition of the Jacob Epstein Gallery in 1929 which included the Emilia Pia di Montefeltre Portrait as well as the Rinaldo and Armida is shown in a photograph that is also contained in this collection.